Fortnite has had a huge impact on the gaming industry, even becoming the first metaverse. To become such a cultural force, it’s had to amass a pretty impressive player base. But the size of the Fortnite player base has fluctuated from time to time. A lot of people wonder about the exact size of the Fortnite player count.

Most game developers rarely release this kind of information and for a while, Epic was the same. They would only release some very specific and selective data on the Fortnite player base when it reached some kind of all-time high. However, that’s changed recently. Everyone can see how many people play Fortnite, and it’s a lot. When you factor in all the people watching the best Fortnite streamers, it’s clearly still very popular.

We now have easy access to information that tells us exactly how many players are in each game mode. Although with Creative and Unreal for FN, it’s a bit more complicated. With some outside information, we can even look at demographics and how much of the player count of Fortnite is kids. While it is sometimes decreasing, the Fortnite player count in 2023 is still impressive. Most recently, the game has smashed a new concurrent player high at the launch of the latest Chapter.

Credit: Esports.net

How Many People Play Fortnite?

Epic has recently decided to give complete stats for how many people play Fortnite! Epic breaks down the total online players for anyone to look at in the lobby.

Essentially, we’re normally around 2 million players online.

Although, this will obviously vary depending on what’s going on in-game. With the player count displaying for each game individually, it’s hard to get full totals. Looking at the most popular maps though that’s roughly what a look at the player base shows.

Although, this will obviously vary depending on what’s going on in-game.

Fortnite’s Active Players

That’s how many players are online at any one time. How many log-in each month or so though? Most recently, Epic claimed over 235 million active accounts. Although, these don’t all log in every month. The monthly average accounts seem to sit around 80 million according to most estimates.

For total accounts, it’ll be a bit inflated. Even big figures in Fortnite have operated quite a few accounts under their own name. It might be against the rules, but that rule-breaking can be pretty brazenly flouted. Some players even start up a new account frequently to have a quick match with a lobby full of bots to practice. So registered users aren’t a particularly helpful measure of how many people are actually playing.

In terms of how many are actually active and playing, there were 12.3 million playing concurrently in 2019. Fortnite’s best-ever month for the player count was in 2018 when 78 million were actively playing in August. Additionally, back in December 2020, over 15.3 million players united to beat Galactus in a single-day event. This is the highest that the Fortnite player count has gotten in such a short span of time.

 

Demographics – How much of the Player Count in Fortnite are Kids?

Fortnite player count numbers are one thing, but what about the demographics? In 2018, 62.7% of Fortnite players were under 24, with 22.5% being between 25 and 34. The remaining portion was over 35, giving particular weight to the game’s player base. So, we can say that a large portion of the Fortnite player base is pretty young.

Who is playing Fortnite?

A study by Verto Analytics has given players a much better look at who is part of the Fortnite player count.

On top of 62.7% being 18-24, 22.5% are 25-43.
Men are 72.4% of the player base, with only 27.6% being women.

Fortnite’s demographics also seem to pull in people who don’t often play games. 37% of players don’t play games other than Fortnite. This probably contributes a lot to the average time spent on Fortnite.

Fortnite Player Count Hits New High in C4 S4

One nice aspect of getting that in-game tracker for the live player count is fans can now track when the game hits new highs. We’ve recently crossed one of those milestones with the release of Fortnite Chapter 4 Season 4.

The latest season’s opening days led to a huge spike in the player count. Those who keep track of the “playing now” section day to day and hour to hour have reported that the game has just hit its highest online player count Epic added the feature. It isn’t the highest player count ever, but the biggest while we’ve had access to these numbers.

According to the in-game tracker, the all-time peak for players was hit just a few days ago with the launch of the season. The player count crossed 2,817,816 for the core modes! Since Fortnite Creative contains too many maps to ever check all of their player counts at once, this is likely less than the full figure too. These numbers for a concurrent player base are huge compared to most of Fortnite’s competition. Clear evidence that Fortnite is far from quieter.

Source: @FortniteNwsHub

The launch of the new season for Fortnite likely contributed quite a bit to this rise in the player base. The new season features one of the most fun early metas we’ve seen, day gameplay is arguably the best we’ve ever had in the game. It’s not a surprise that extra players have jumped in to try it out. The first hotfix of the chapter has added new EMP Grenades too, a feature which only further compliments the balance of new weapons so far. If Epic keeps this up, we might see an even higher peak coming later in Chapter 4 Season 4.

How Many People Are Playing Fortnite Right Now?

If you want to know how many people are playing Fortnite right now, it’s easy to find out. Just open up the game and check each game mode! This can’t account for every single Fortnite creative map like all of the Fortnite hide and seek codes. However, it’s a nice measure of all of the main modes.

How Many People Spend Money on Fortnite?

Alongside the player count, the people spending money on Fortnite is a good measure of its current popularity. Although, there are some ways to get free V-bucks.

If we take a look at the monthly spending by players, we can clearly see a steady decline up until the pandemic lockdowns forced millions of players to stay put and likely invest money and play time into Fortnite.

Data source: Sensor Tower

When Did the Fortnite Player Count Peak?

The active Fortnite number of players first spiked with the Travis Scott concert and sat at 12.5 million concurrently active players. If you factor in stream viewers, the black hole event probably beat this.

In terms of actual Fortnite player base peaks though, that Galaticus event was definitely the peak to date. 15 million people were involved in that event, and that’s not counting the huge number of streaming viewers. Fortnite might well break this record again in the future, with the game holding big events at the end of each Chapter.

Fortnite Save the World Player Count

The Battle Royale side of Fortnite isn’t the entire game, and we have a much better idea of players of the Save the World game. This side of the game was paid, so we can easily look at sale figures to see how many players Save the World has. Last time the game’s sales figures were announced publicly, it had sold over a million copies.

Is the Fortnite Player Count Dropping?

The player base of Fortnite might be dropping, but if it is then only steadily. Fortnite is a game that thrives on constant renewal. What comes with this is a fairly healthy cycle of players coming in and out. Fortnite has had seasons with a significantly lower player count followed up by considerably more popular ones.

The opening of Chapter 2 brought a lot of players, new and old, back to Fortnite after its spark had dulled a little. It’s likely that Chapter 3, as did Chapter 4. A bigger factor recently is more modes like Zero Builds and Unreal opening up creative. The Fortnite player base is more split up than ever. So even if it isn’t actually dropping, it can feel less crowded.

While the topic of Fortnite dying is always popping up, the game’s player count tends to go up and down rather than just in one direction.

Fortnite on Twitch

One way you can look at the Fortnite player count or general interest is to look on Twitch. A lot of people watch more Fortnite than they actually play. The game is still routinely sat in the top few spots on Twitch, so we can safely say a lot of people are watching Fortnite on Twitch.

Fortnite’s player count can be hard to figure out, even with the currently active players’ number being provided. Since so few games give this information it’s hard to measure it against anything. However, since this feature was added the player base size seems pretty stable. It might fluctuate in the future, but at the moment it feels like Fortnite remains as popular as ever.

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